("Half human"), first published in 1954 and awarded the Peace Cultural Award, portrays an author haunted by memories of the atomic bombing and living in fear of radiation sickness and an impending world war. As John Whittier Treat wrote in his book Writing Ground Zero, the critical reception of Han ningen justified Ōta's reputation as "a bitter, disturbed, and perhaps even deranged woman whose writings on Hiroshima deserve to be discounted as equally bitter, disturbed, and deranged themselves." The possibility that she might die from the atomic bomb's aftereffects stayed with her for the rest of her life. Ōta died of a heart attack in 1963 in Fukushima Prefecture while working on a new novel. The four-volume (though incomplete) Ōta Yōko shū ("Collected works of Ōta Yōko"), edited by Ineko Sata et al., was published posthumously in 1982. Her works have been translated into English, German, Italian and Russian language. Literary works (selected) 1940: Sakura no kuni 1945: Katei no yō na hikari 1948: City of Corpses (Shikabane no machi) 1951: Ningen ranru 1953: Fireflies (Hotaru) 1954: Han ningen 1954: Residues of Squalor (Zanshū tenten) Bibliography Notes References Further reading 1963 deaths 20th-century Japanese women writers 20th-century Japanese writers Writers from Hiroshima